Electronic surveillance at the Sonoma County Probation Department

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the nineties with your host Rich McGlinchey. How you doing everybody? Welcome to this edition of Sonoma County in the 90s. We're gonna be talking about a very new development and very important developments in the probation department. It's called a alternative to incarceration or electronic surveillance I

believe is the correct title. We are talking to two officials of the probation department. We're going to explain this and how it works and why it's been successful on the right of your screen is Patricia Vandenberg. She's a supervising adult probation officer. And on the left

of screen is Paula galera, adult prevention division director. Hi paul, nice to have you here. Uh I really think this is extremely important that we get our program across to the people tonight because it is an alternative to incarceration and it is a tronic surveillance and

it is new and it is different and is working right. It is working very well. Okay, Alright, let's jump right on into it and oh no, let's go for that. First of all. How about a little background about the two of you? Uh We'll start with

you patty sure I'll call you. Alright. Uh How long have you been with this department? And what is your background here? Okay. I've been with the Sonoma County probation department about 5.5 years. I've been a probation officer since 1977. And prior to being fortunate enough to

come to the wine country. I worked in Chester County probation department for eight years. And how about you? I know you've been around a while. True. I began my career with Sonoma County in the juvenile hall in 1977 as a youth supervisor and became a juvenile

probation officer in 1979. Since that time I've worked in various areas of the probation department and I became the adult division director in 1987. Okay, now you know who our people are and you listen, they've got some very important things to tell you. Okay, paul, let's

start with you. Uh Why does Sonoma County have a supervised electronic confinement program? Well, the program has grown out of jail overcrowding problems. As many people know we have a federal court order that limits the population of our jails. The the probation department operates several programs

designed to cut overcrowding problems or to relieve the overcrowding in the jail. And the electronic monitoring program is the newest of those programs and that's that's the that's the reason why it was started basically because of jail overcrowding. Yeah. We certainly have to do something where

you just build a brand new jail. And I'm told that that's going to be full by the time it gets really in full operation. That's true that the projection is, the jail will be full or at least near capacity when it opens. This is an idea

whose time has come to this patty who operates the program here in Sonoma County. The profession department has a unit called the jail services unit that uh jail services unit. It's a unit of programs that provide alternatives to incarceration and services to inmates that are in

the facilities. And so the jail services unit operates the electronic confinement program. There's a senior level deputy probation officer who screens the applicants and installs the equipment and monitors the people while they're on on the program. Okay, uh Paul, how long have these type of programs

been in existence? And is there such a program elsewhere? Yes. Um this is really not a new technology. The US Army Signal Corps started using similar equipment back in 1919 to track ships and balloons and aircraft. And um the actual the program, the equipment we're using

now began to come into effect in about the early 60's when doctors would implant transmitters into medical patients to warn them of impending changes in body chemistry or problems with the body in 1964 back in Cambridge and Boston, a professor decided that perhaps this kind of

technology and application to tracking offenders of certain types. So between 64 and 70 mental health patients and parolees in boston and Cambridge demonstrated or attempted to use this type of gear in in a concrete and comprehensive program. Um The interesting part of this is that it

it became a judge in in Albuquerque new Mexico called Jack Love. Um saw a spider man comic strip where they demonstrated or talked about the use of tracking people through electronics. And he became almost media figure nationwide And within a year in palm beach florida of

the first electronic monitoring program came into effect since that time, it's become nationwide. The first program in California started in San Diego in 86 and has spread throughout the state since that time. This the project you're working with now is a success, has been a success

elsewhere. And I think we'll find as we go through the program questions here that it's becoming a success right here in Sonoma County already? Yeah. Alright. Uh Patty, there's two questions here. How did the process of electronic home confinement begin in Sonoma County and then um

What allows the county to operate this prototype of this kind of a program? Well the legislature enacted some a statute that allowed counties to operate an electronic monitoring system. And we did an experimental pilot program about two years ago and decided that we wanted to go

ahead and and go with it. So the board of supervisors approved us having a program that allows 20 inmates to serve their time at home. So there's actually a law that allows counties to do this. Okay. Um, I think we'll stay with you here for a

minute ago. This is a complicated series of questions and maybe we can get them break them down. First of all, how can a person become involved in such a program? It's really very simple. We have an application process, person fills out an application. It's screened by

the probation officer who handles the case load to determine whether they meet certain criteria. Um, obviously people on this program cannot be considered to be a danger to the community. They have to be a cooperative person. And as long as they meet our eligibility criteria, then

we'll go ahead and consider them for the program right now. The qualifications, fees, application screening process. What about that? Well, like I said, they can't be considered to be dangerous. The the application process is a, is a routine screening of their personal circumstances and they're back.

Absolutely. We check into their criminal background and what not. They have to have a home in Sonoma County, a place to live in Sonoma County that has a telephone line because this operates via computers and we utilize the telephone system to some extent. Um, and they

basically have to be willing to to comply with the rules, which are very strict actually, I'm sure they are. Yeah. Now this is kind of three questions in one. How about the types of people of the program? The number of them? And how long were they

on it? Um since the program has been in existence since January of 1989, so it's a little over a year and uh we've had over 120 people go through the program. The average length of stay is about 60 days. Um oftentimes they may be allowed to

transition to another release program, but they spend the majority of their confinement time on the electronic monitoring system. The kinds of people that we have on the program. We have a very uh varied group actually. Um it might be interesting to know that I would say

35-40% are women with child care demands. Um We have a good portion of people with medical problems who would uh that incarceration would be deleterious to their health if they were to have to go to jail. Perhaps they take medication that um it's not allowed in

a in a facility. And so we place them at home and they can continue in therapy appointments or uh continue to take medication. Um And still and still do their sentence. And you say the average the average like the program on the program is about. It's

about about two months, about two minutes. Let me aside from what we jotted down to ask you hear what happens after that? Generally speaking. Well, it depends on their particular situation. Many of the people are are have been granted formal probation and then they transition that

back into the community without the system. They've completed their sentence and they're supervised by a probation officer in the community. And we are talking about an alternative to incarceration. So these people that are serving this way with the electronic surveillance are out instead of being in

helping to overcrowd the jail's policy, right? But they're confined to their home. So every day that they're on the system is like doing a day in jail except that they're serving it within the, within their house. Is there any little thing you want to add about

that? I mean before we get off that subject, when they get their little electronic surveillance device and we're going to see that shortly and then they go home, they have to remain in their house. Well, except for approved outside activities. We allow them obviously to go

to work. If they have a job, we allow them to go to the doctor. If they have appointments that are have been set. We allow them to attend, for example, a aa alcoholics, anonymous or narcotics anonymous meetings. We allow them to go to church. If they

live alone, we allow them a certain period of time and again, this is programmed into a computer. So the computer knows when they're supposed to be home and when they're not supposed to be home, but we allow them to go to grocery shopping for example, But

other than that, they're, uh, than the things that they need to do to, to get by, they are confined to their home. One thing comes to mind, nit picking The person wears this thing all the time. They got to go take a shower. It's waterproof. Oh,

Okay. I was wondering if that was one of the things I was thinking about what we say. They can't go swimming and no hot tubs, but, but they can shower and bathe. Okay. Yeah. I just wondered how they would suddenly take this thing off and be

15 minutes going, where is this person doesn't come off? All right. What are some of the problems you've encountered are the major ones? Well, actually, the, what you would expect is that we have the problem with the people and we haven't had the problem with the

people. This is an evolving technology. We're learning more and more about it all the time. And uh, the only problems that we've encountered have been some relatively minor ones with the equipment and the telephone lines. A couple of minutes before we have to take a break

here, you've indicated or we've indicated, said stated the program is successful. You definitely feel that it is right. We feel it's very successful so far. Okay. Uh can you give us kind of a success rate or the cost savings to the county? Well 94% of the

people in the program completed without incident at all. Uh Those who have had incident, generally, we've had people turn themselves in because they found the program too restrictive and we consider them a program failure. We have also had people who simply cannot deal with the regimentation

imposed by the unit itself or by the program and we've had to pull them off for that. We've had minor violations. We had one person drive when they were had a restricted license and we had to return them to custody. Um but that really has nothing

to do with the program content per se. It has more to do with the fact that their ride didn't come. So they chose to drive. Um The worst offense we've had has been um could have occurred any time and involved a client to abuse their spouse

in their own home, abuse the spouse, physical abuse on a spouse. And that person was immediately returned to custody by the law enforcement agency and of course will never be allowed a second chance on a program. In the second segment of our talk here interview here,

we're gonna see how these things work a little bit. Um Is there any hardship with a person wearing a thing like that? It's no, we're gonna show that a little bit, but it's it's a lightweight device, I think, isn't it? It's a very lightweight device. Um

There is no hardship from the equipment per se. The hardship is imposed by the regimentation of the program. It really changes your life. In what way? Go ahead. Well, such an obvious second question. I mean, most people would think that, wow, I mean, going home and

getting out of jail. No big deal. The problem is, most people that are at home are feel free and can do just about anything they want to you can walk out to the store and pick up a pack of cigarettes, uh carton of milk because you

ran out of breakfast milk. Our clients can't do that. If they leave the home, we receive an instant violation that they've left the range of the transmitter and that is grounds for violation for removal from the program. If your child comes to you and says, daddy,

it's a beautiful sunny day. I'd like you to come watch my baseball game or let's go to the park, you can't do that. If you do that, we will remove you from the program. You may get a warning the first time. If it's if it's a

minor offense, but in general, the job, your job is to remain at home within the confines of your home and to be confined there. It's called supervised electronic confinement for that reason. Well, it's a very serious matter is an alternative to incarceration. It's a lot nicer.

I would think to be home even under all these conditions than it is to be in a cell. So I think it's very uh very fair. The way to do this. We're gonna pause for just a moment. Let the stadium stadium, let the station bring the

audience a public service announcement. We come back. We want to see more about these electronics finances, Paula Gilera, Patty Vandenberg and I will return. But first these messages, this is Michael Landon for a special word for all you parents and grandparents of small Children, HIPPA cac.

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that night. He lost control of the car, Greg died on the way to the hospital and now I'm the one with a nice set of wheels. A simple reminder from the professional photographers of the Redwood empire. Hey, welcome back to a very special edition of Sonoma

County in the nineties. Were talking to paul and Patty Vandenberg and they're involved in a program called alternative to incarceration or electronic surveillance. And we're gonna learn more about that right now. It's been a successful program. It is an alternative to incarceration and it is working

and paul, before we waste any more time with questions that we can talk about later, let's find out what the equipment is all about. First of all, How does the electronic monitoring work? And then let's discuss the types of the equipment. The equipment in general. There

there are several types of equipment and they're either work on what they call active or passive monitoring. A passive device is usually worn on a wrist or involves some kind of contact by a remote computer. When the computer calls the home, the person puts a wristlet

in a device that registers its contact or speaks a series of words into a phone or even talks to a human being. However, what happens is when that contact is terminated, that person may leave the house, There's nothing controlling their whereabouts or noticing their whereabouts. The

other gear called active gear tends to which of which? This is a type, It receives a radio frequency signal from a transmitter worn in the person of the offender, if that signal is broken and usually that signal has a radius of about 150 ft. Then an

automatic violation is generated to the central monitoring station, which is generally computer, which notices the probation officer in the county that uses probation that the person has left the confines of the home, so there's an instant response or at least an instant notice of violation in

Sonoma County. We use this equipment. This is a Voreqe Corporation voice net monitoring system and this system is rather unique. This system does both active radio frequency monitoring of the offender and it uses a telephone handset, which is actually a microphone to verify a person's voice

patterns. We enroll when we first enroll a person, we have them speak a series of words, telephone California, umbrella, basketball, and we'll repeat that series up to 10 times until a voice template is built into the computer in the unit. After that point in time, if

the signal is lost, the electronic signal is lost from the ankle, which I'll show you in a minute. Then the unit automatically from this station, whether or not the power is turned on, initiates a voice test and that it will ring very loudly. You'll be able

to hear it almost anywhere in the residence or within even 100 and 50 ft outside the residence and the person must come and respond to the words that are red that are said to him through the telephone handset. And if the word, the person has two

chances to respond back to the unit with each word. And if they fail, it registers either a failed voice test or if they failed to take it, it responds both that the signal is out of range and the person didn't, you didn't take the test which

generally tells us that they failed to be home or they've left the premises. We then will respond to that generally with an officer checking. Okay? Now the way this system works as we use it is we have a base computer in our office. That based computer

consists of two actual separate subsystems. One system does nothing but register and track violations. The other contains all the data about a person, for example, their schedule, their work hours when we allow them to leave the house for treatment or for church or school. Whatever the

person's program allows then what we do is we take this basic box out to the person's home and we install it. And the installation is quite simple. It simply involves taking this transformer unit and plugging it into a home outlet. At the same time. We take

this telephone jack and plug it into the telephone. And then the person's telephone is plugged in turn into the back of the jack where there's another opening. So what in effect, what happens is we've just connected this unit between your telephone and the main telephone line.

Now, when once we've done that, we also enroll the person by means of the voice tests I mentioned earlier and then the person is considered to be on the program. The second part of that is this R. F. Anklets transmitter which I'm wearing now essentially what

this is is a battery and a radio monitoring device which transmits by means of an antenna in the band. Okay now it looks like no big thing and you'd also think that all I have to do to get it off is to cut it. Well if

I do that there's a tamper alarm in here that automatically signals to the unit this has been tampered with or disconnected and that constitutes an instant violation of program guidelines. Which subject to removal from the program. The other function that this has is that it continually

transmits to the antenna which you can see on the on here which receives a signal. So as long as I'm within approximately 100 and 50 ft radius of that transmitter of the antenna will have no problems. It will continually show a signal. If I leave the

area, the unit automatically dials the central computer and tells it that the person's in violation that I'm in violation of my program, I've left the area. The secondary function of course is we use the voice test in a number for a number of reasons are f

radio frequency transmission is not perfect. If a person were to go out in the garage and perhaps crawl into their car, the signal could be blocked. So what will happen is you'll get a ringing and you'll have to come answer the handset. It allows you enough

time to get there to take the test at the same time, probably by crawling out from under the car, you re established the R. F. Signal. And if the person passes the test, it simply notes that the test was initiated due to a loss of signal

and we go back online and there's probably not gonna be a problem. We will ask you about it later why the signal was lost. If it's for five or 10 seconds or a minute, It's unlikely you've had a chance to do anything that would constitute a

violation. But if it's for five or 10 minutes we know you've lost. You've you've gone away from the home. The transmitter itself, as I noted on my ankle, it's completely waterproof. The only reason we don't have people swim or use hot tubs is that water will

block the frequency signal the transmitting of the signal. Otherwise you can take a shower or bath with it on this is this is important. Um Now this is installed in the person's house and here he wears that and it covers 100 and 50 ft from the

main unit, Generally 100 and 50 ft, there can be interferences. And you pointed out occasionally there was a snafu maybe with equipment. I mean there's always that possibility. You said you did have some problems to begin with. But what were the problems to begin with? Just

failure of that? When we started we used a different type of equipment. One for example, did not have any kind of voice verification kind of back up in it and we had just no end of radio frequency problems. We'd lost signals for no reason, was very

difficult for us to tell what was occurring with the client. And so at the end of that contract, we simply left that company and took on voreqe, which is, you know, I hate to plug the company but in a way they're probably than the number one

supplier. Now, everyone that's using their gear is extremely satisfied with it. Uh, state parole for example, uses it for serious offenders rather than either returning them to prison or for drug offenders. L. A. County also uses it for serious offenders and they are totally and and

inconsistently or or consistently happy with the quality of the equipment. It works extremely well. That's great. Uh, Alright, what is life like on the program, so to speak? We touched on that briefly life is very restricted on the program. Um again, most people would think that

going home and getting out of the offender and the family members. There is an effect on the family members. They have to learn to live with a different type of telephone system. For example, this unit answers every incoming telephone call. And then if it's not for

it, if it's not a carrier wave that it recognizes from the computer, it then will beep a certain pattern and the family can pick up the phone so it doesn't interrupt phone service. But it does create different sounds during the day. It will be very peer.

It admits a very piercing beep when it's calling the person for a voice test, which by the way we often set up randomly simply to check speech patterns to make sure a person is not intoxicated. Uh And it just the fact that the family member is

no longer free to do what they used to do really in perfect interferes with the family pattern. For example, if I'm taking my child to ballet lessons every night and that's my job or at least twice a week I can no longer do that. If it's

my job to go out and do the grocery shopping, I can't do that. I'm restricted. But on the other hand, what it does do is it keeps the family intact. So it's the most important thing is exactly that. Well I think that we have a relatively

good anecdote or true story that we could talk about a little bit with that with a client we had who worked in an outlying area who was on for drunk drives and essentially did not qualify for a work furlough program because he didn't have transportation or

driver's license or, and couldn't afford insurance. The person's Children had both of the two of the Children had a rare disease and essentially the person lost his job. Well what resulted is the family was about to go on welfare, They were about to lose their home

and be evicted and the mother could not cope with the two Children that were ill because of being a single parent at that time. And this program allowed the family to be reunited. One of the Children would be able to come back into the home and

the father went back to his employment. That right. Is that that's a success story right there. That's a success. Let me get back to one quick question with you about a couple of minutes, what are the benefits of the program as you see it? Well, the

number one benefit of the program is that it saves the county a lot of money. Um, the, yeah, the, the cost of keeping some of these people in jail, especially the people with medical, severe medical problems is enormous. They require around the clock medical care, special

housing, that sort of thing. So it's a cost benefit to the county to have these people in the community working in their homes, not on welfare and not in jail. Um, that's, that's that right there, that's a tremendous, tremendous cost savings. We also, we also charge

a fee. So there's a revenue that's been, that's been collected engendered by this. And the fee of course is it's based on the person's ability to pay. And we've had some people pay as little as 50 cents a day, but the average fee is about 10

to $15 a day. We have run out of time. Paul was really nice of you to take the time, the same pleasure to come down and have you with us. We've been talking about an alternative to incarceration, electronic surveillance. It is working, it's under the direction

of Paul, who is the probation adult profession division director and Patricia Vandenberg Patty, supervising adult probation officer. We'll be back with you next week with another member of the county government family and learn more about this county. We live in the county. We all love until

then, so long, good luck and good health to each and every one of you